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Downton Abbey Series 5 Episode 8

Clare Bennett reports on a very eventful series finale...

10 Nov 2014

Monday 10 November 2014

ITV

Weddings, arrests, propositions, drinking, gambling, hookers, divorce and a mother who makes Kris Jenner look like Jools Oliver. Somehow we're supposed to cope with this being the series finale - someone pass the Quaaludes.

Mother of the Year

We've all been out with someone our mother doesn't like. However, I suspect few of us can claim that our mother set our boyfriend up with a prostitute, took some misleading photos and then sent them to us anonymously to try to break us up. And while mothers can be precarious at weddings, it is rare they decide to announce to the entire congregation that they are getting divorced simply because they know it would appal our prospective in-laws. Hmmm, how to describe Susan MacClare? Shrimpy called her a cat, but that's a couple of letters off the mark. Atticus and Rose jolly well got married anyway, and I'm sure Rose will learn how to make challah and snap Lord Sinderby out of his mood. As long as she never finds out that Atticus has actually been tweeting moi this week, this should work out fine *cackles*.

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From Russia With Love

So Prince Kuragin has a touch of the Stanley Kowalskis about him and I mean that in a good way. Gruffly suggesting they live together as boyfriend and girlfriend and to hell with his yawny old wife was pretty thrilling and I am all over this plan like a rash. I can totally see the DC with a moody foreign lover who never smiles because he's too busy fancying the absolute hell out of her. I also love how the DC and Cousin Isobel have taken to nonchalantly talking about boys: 'Gonna marry yours?' 'Yeah, I dunno. You?', etc. No wonder Mary is such a player - it's clearly genetic. Having said that, Tony Gillingham is marrying Mabel Lane Fox after all, and Charles Blake is now in Poland. Tinder, anyone?

'His Dudeness or, uh, Duder or El Duderino'

Edith is LOVING being a pretend mother to her actual daughter. She can now openly miss Marigold and talk to Mary and Branson about the pros and cons of Peppa Pig without looking like a freak. It's all worked out alarmingly well. Obviously Lord Grantham has already guessed that Marigold is really Edith's child, but as he seems to have been heavily sedated this week and is reacting to everything with the relaxed zen of someone who has been hitting up Valium like he was eating sweets, it doesn't seem to have fazed him. Given that Isis has joined the great shooting party in the sky and he's having to sell the della Francesca to pay for that housing project he wants to build, he's gone very dude-like. He even had a plaque made for Mrs Patmore's disgraced nephew and that bit made me cry. AND he was nice to Lady Grantham. Startling.

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And finally…

Denker getting slashed up in the Velvet Violin, Daisy resigning and then not resigning - all these things I can handle. But Anna getting arrested for Mr Green's murder? Nuh-uh. If we ALL ask Father Christmas for justice, maybe she'll be free again by the time we regroup for the Clooney special?